Poems of the Week

Best Supporting Beasts

by Julia Griffin

“After the uproar when an ’emotional support peacock’ was banned from an [airplane], United Airlines has released a list of banned animals. The list includes hedgehogs, ferrets, insects, rodents, snakes, spiders, reptiles and ‘non-household birds.'”—The Telegraph 

Long has the mobile public fought
Its scorn-belabored corner
For the emotional support
Supplied by other fauna.

It is not rabbit, dog, or cat
Alone that reassure us:
Help comes from hedgehog, vampire bat,
Baboon, and stegosaurus.

The benefits of this are big:
We know that now, so please,
Permit my ESP (that’s Pig)
His ESFs (that’s Fleas).